East and North Hertfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group

The vanguard and the people it serves

The better care for care home residents’ vanguard is supporting health and social care providers to work together to provide enhanced levels of care for vulnerable patients in care homes and avoid unnecessary trips to hospital.

Many of these frail, elderly patients live with more than one long-term health condition and can quickly become very unwell.

The vanguard partners are:

East and North Hertfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group

Hertfordshire County Council

Hertfordshire Care Home Providers Association, working with a range of other providers

The Clinical Commissioning Group covers a population of 580,000, around 17 per cent of whom are aged over 65.

What is changing?

The vanguard’s main focus is on improving services through workforce development, with new integrated teams and enhanced training.

The aim is for staff to feel more valued and confident in their roles and empowered to offer better care for residents.

The new teams being created include GPs, district and practice nurses, mental health nurses, older people’s specialists and pharmacists who work closely with care home staff.

Thanks to the funding it receives through the national programme, the vanguard is also able to offer an extra ‘complex care premium’ which allows care home staff to undertake a new package of training and education, equipping them with enhanced skills to look after patients who have complex needs with increased confidence.

For enhanced urgent care the vanguard aims to bring together additional ‘rapid response’ teams of community nurses, matrons, therapists and home carers who can arrive at care homes to provide support within 60 minutes. Where appropriate, the teams will be able to put care in place within the home as an alternative to sending elderly patients to A&E.

There will also be an investment in technology to give all GPs access to comprehensive information about each care home resident during visits.

Key benefits

Improving staff skills and confidence to support care home residents

Reducing unnecessary and distressing visits to A&E through an improved urgent care service within care homes.